


Wordless understanding

by BlushLouise



Series: Small packages [9]
Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Bitterness, Hurt/Comfort, Love/Hate, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 07:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16593512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlushLouise/pseuds/BlushLouise
Summary: Sometimes, he lets himself melt against the bigger Prime, the one true Prime, as Optimus’s strong hands stroke across his plating. Sometimes he lets himself feel small again, feel cared for, feel that he actually can give up all the problems and burdens of leadership just as he gave up the Matrix.Prompt response forTfrarepairing on Tumbl





	Wordless understanding

Optimus doesn’t even need to say anything.

His field is enough. The gentle touch along Rodimus’ spoiler, offering comfort and support. The large hand covering his own.

Oh, Optimus still uses words. He’ll talk at Ultra Magnus, at the Junkions, at Arcee, at whoever is nearby who needs a good strong ‘I am so disappointed in you’ talk-to from _the_ Prime.

But he never uses that on Rodimus. He never has to.

Because Rodimus already feels like a disappointment. And Optimus knows that. Primus knows how, because Rodimus hasn’t told him, though he can’t be sure what the other Autobots have said. He knows he’s had his moments of weakness around them in the past.

Regardless of why, Optimus knows. And he seems to have understood that he can’t combat Rodimus’ ingrained self-loathing with one of his speeches.

So instead, he touches. It’s all calculated, Rodimus assumes, supposed to make him feel better. Feel comforted.

Not that it always works. Most times, Rodimus just feels patronized. Or pitied, which is worse.

But sometimes, it works.

Sometimes, he lets himself melt against the bigger Prime, the one true Prime, as Optimus’s strong hands stroke across his plating. Sometimes he lets himself feel small again, feel cared for, feel that he actually can give up all the problems and burdens of leadership just as he gave up the Matrix.

Well. Lost the Matrix.

Sometimes, he can just let himself be Hot Rod.

It never lasts, but why would it? He’s Rodimus now, for good and for bad (mostly bad, really), and there’s no getting away from that. He may not be Prime anymore, not really, but he’s still Rodimus.

It’s _weird_. It’s weird, and uncomfortable, and makes his plating crawl, to be kind of himself but not completely himself, not who he was at first and not who he was second, but someone new and old at the same time. It’s all chaos, and Rodimus doesn’t always handle it too well.

Optimus tries to understand. Some part of it, Rodimus imagines, he probably can understand. After all, Rodimus is not the first mech to have his life hijacked by a magical artefact that turns him into someone he’d never really had any intentions to be.

But most of it, he can’t understand. Because Optimus was welcomed in a way Rodimus wasn’t. There was more need for Optimus than there was for Orion. And there was less need for Rodimus than there was for Optimus. Even less need for Rodimus than there had been for Hot Rod.

Also, Optimus had been himself. He’d died as Optimus and come back as Optimus. He’d been Prime all the way.

Rodimus… Rodimus was more like a place-holder. Someone vaguely Prime-shaped they could stuff into the hole Optimus had left behind until the true Prime could be called back.

Pit, the Matrix had even changed his alt mode to match Optimus’. As if to scream to the entire universe that yeah, he’s close, but he ain’t it, for all that it had tried to fix him.

That, Optimus can never understand. Not completely.

But sometimes, sometimes, it feels like he tries.

Sometimes they will be snuggled up together, Optimus curled against Rodimus’ back, and Rodimus feels the slow, steady pulse of that Matrix-bearing spark behind him. And he can feel the acceptance, the care, in that spark.

Optimus has seen Rodimus’ memories in the Matrix. He knows Rodimus as well as the Matrix does. It gives him insight in Rodimus’ mind, insight the younger mech would have probably preferred that the other didn’t have, but at least Optimus tries to act on what he knows. Tries to make Rodimus feel better about himself.

This, this helps. This affection, this peace Rodimus finds in those strong arms. Where there’s no need for words and no need for thought, just the calm feel of someone who accepts him as he is now, and accepted him as he was then, who’d always been willing to lay down his life for him even if it had taken a transformation to Rodimus for the younger mech to see that.

And little by little, Optimus soothes the guilt and despair away. Without ever saying or doing anything other than touching. Holding.

And Rodimus tries to let that be enough.


End file.
